Guest Post by Courtney Allison Moulton, Plus GIVEAWAY

This contest is now over! Thanks for entering!

Today we have a guest post by the lovely and amazing Courtney Allison Moulton, YA author represented by Elizabeth Jote of Objective Entertainment. Her debut, ANGELFIRE, will be released by HarperCollins/Katherine Tegan Books on February 15, 2011. You can find her on twitter, her website, and her blog.

Good Guys vs. Bad Boys--or, is there an Option C?

Courtney Allison Moulton

Will

I’ve noticed that people tend to group guys into two categories, the good guys and the bad boys. Frankly, that’s a little boring to me. Why does a guy have to be one or the other? Despite making a character and his story pretty predictable, it raises concerns about the ideas we’re giving teen girls. I’m of the opinion that two people in a relationship should respect one another and stand on equal ground, so I suppose you could call me a feminist by definition. With a good guy, you don’t want a doormat to be stomped all over and have no spark or depth to his character. With a bad boy, you don’t want a jerk who’s going to disrespect you or even become dangerous. I’ve read a number of mind-blowing blogs this past year addressing “rape culture” in YA in the past year, and that is a terrifying thought. We don’t want to teach girls to disrespect the person they love, or to let that person disrespect them.

So, how can we avoid letting our lit guys fall into one of those categories? The answer: don’t write a guy to be a good guy or a bad boy. Write a real person who has his faults and strengths just like any normal guy you’d meet in real life. This enables Option C to be vast, probably even limitless.

Cadan

I’ll tell you what my preferred Option C is: a good guy who’s a badass. Will from my YA novel ANGELFIRE is a good guy, but he is, quite literally, a badass. But then again, could a hot guy who slices and dices soul-stealing demonic reapers with a big freaking sword be anything but a badass?

The tricky part with his character is that his good guy-ness has to be carefully balanced with his badass-ness. He is my main character Ellie’s Guardian, an immortal bodyguard who is sworn to defend her at any cost in battle, but he is also a servant who must obey her. For five hundred years, he has been devoted to her and has fallen in love with her as she has lived and died a thousand lives as the only hope for humankind against the reapers. Ellie takes him for granted sometimes since she’s not perfect either, and Will has to stand on his own as a strong character despite his purpose and desire to put her before his own life. In battle, he is the ultimate badass and in the real world, he doesn’t quite know how to function like a normal person. Fighting is all he really understands and he tries to do what he believes is best, whether it’s right or wrong.

So who wants a guy who is just a good guy or just a bad boy? Throw some unpredictability in there, something different to keep a lit guy from just falling into a category. Give your good guy a bit of an edge to keep our hearts pounding, and make sure your bad boy isn’t just a douchebag sex pest.

And accompanying Courtney's guest post is a giveaway of her YA fantasy debut, ANGELFIRE--signed by the author! All you have to do to enter is fill out the form below. And this is open internationally (yay!) Giveaway ends Sunday, July 18th.Giveaway Now Closed!

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comments:

I've already entered the contest, but I just wanted to say thanks to Kaitlin for hosting this, and thanks to Courtney for such an amazing insight into character profiles :D I'm so so so pumped for Angelfire!

I love the cover of this book! : ) And such a fun idea: not always having to choose a good guy or a bad boy. That makes them sound so predictable! And people aren't THAT predictable. lol.Thanks for the giveaway.

I actually laughed out loud at "douchebag sex pest". If I don't win, I'm buying this book as soon as it's out, purely for that reason :P. Plus, the cover is so pretty! I love it. I'm really excited to read this.

Thanks for highlighting the middle ground; I've never been a fan of so called bad boys but many times it seemed like that was all there was or else the "good guys" were super lame. We need more realistic guys to swoon over in fiction!

I completely agree! That's one of the reasons I hate love triangles so much because it's always separated into the good reliable guy vs the hot not so good bad ass who often times treats the girl like dirt. >.< I like good hearted bad-asses though. ^.^ Douchebag sex pest. *giggles* Love it!

I had a really hard time with well-rounded male characters when I started my novel. Everyone was either good and sympathetic, or evil and antagonistic. Hopefully, their current incarnations are a little more balanced.

The option c is great! Isn't that what Angel was from BtVS?!? I'm very interested in reading Angelfire, and I like that you have considered the fact that 'bad boy vs. good boy' might not be the only way to go!

I completely agree. I think my favorite characters in general are the ones who seem real, who have more depth to them than I'm expecting at first. I love it when characters I think will be "bad boys" turn out to have heart and characters I think will be sickenly sweet turn into something a little not so nice. It just makes reading - and life - more interesting! Great post!

I totally agree with you. I hate it when there are shallow characters... the ones with the edges and faults and strength are way more fun. I also like bad boys that have a reason for their badassery. *g*

Option C is much more appealing than the black or white option of being either a good or bad guy. I love that last line. "Douche sex pest." LOL. Ahh, awesome. Fabulous guest post and thanks for the awesome giveaway!

Courtney, I love what you said about making guys real, not either good or bad. So few books do that these days in YA lit. The only one I can really think of that I have read lately is Jay in Kimberly Derting's Body Finder, Jay came off real because he wasn't perfect, and he made mistakes. I love what you wrote here and look forward to reading Angelfire!

I am all about "choice C" as well. You still want a good guy, who has edge. No one wants to date a goodie-two shoes or a guy who is a complete jerk, you want a mixture of the two. Great giveaway as well :)

I guess I prefer bad boys but not the stereo type ones. People always make incredebly bad at first then at the end of the story he becomes good again. What I love about bad boys is the fact that they have a life unlike good guys, they're not afraid to take a risk. Good Guys usually just stay on the safe zone. :) Plus, bad boys are kinda more protective that good guys. BAD BOYS ARE SOOO HAWTT!!! :)) Anyway... Great contest! This is really nice! I really can't wait for ANGELFIRE! It looks AWESOME!!! :)

I WHOLEHEARTEDLY agree with this post. I get really tired of the good guy/bad guy stereotypes, too. They're incredibly unrealistic, yet it's amazing how many books buy into that. Maybe that's why I'm such a sucker for Mr. Darcy--he stands up for himself, but he's a good guy who really only wants the best for Lizzie.

It's so true. I taught high school for 5 years, and it's incredible the ideas girls have about guys. Courtney is right, we very much need to be providing REALISTIC guys in our writing, guys we would want our friends or our kids looking at.

Will sounds like my kind of guy! But I can see your view on the whole good guy/ bad guy situation and I feel that if you don't *want* your character to be inmmeadiately categorized into one of those groups you need to meet middle grounds. Thanks for the giveaway!

I 100% agree with this. I'm kinda getting tired of guys being categorized as either a bad guy/jackass or a nice guy/push over. Why can't there be a happy medium? We kind of see that alpha males--they're badass, but they're not ALWAYS a jerk. In fact, they're little pussy cats around the ones they care for.

I LOVE this post! As a mom who reads many different genres and a lot of YA, I sometimes have trouble over-looking those "bad boys" and how horribly they treat the heroines and those who surround her. What could anyone find remotely sexy about a controlling guy who basically becomes your whole life? ICK! There is some truly GREAT YA work out there that have some really great characters and I can't wait to read ANGELFIRE and meet this new incredible character, Will!

This is an awesome, awesome giveaway. First one I'm entering! Hope I have some beginner's luck on my side. :) Thanks so much--both for the giveaway and for addressing a topic I've been noticing lately in the fiction I'm reading. Why choose either when you can have the best of both worlds, eh?

Hmm, I definitely understand what you're saying, and I guess I agree that in fiction at least, I like my heroes good guy with a bit of badass-ishness to them. :) Or sometimes the bad-guy-turned-good can be cool as well, as cliched as it is!

In real life... well, I remember an old crush I used to have in high school, and I'm glad he and I never ended up dating, because he was just so NICE... he was such a nice guy, all over, but to be honest I'd have just got bored. My partner now is a really great guy who doesn't have any "bad" features per se but isn't as all-American nice as my old crush... my partner has a slightly wicked (as in, wicked. Not as in, cool) sense of humour, and he's definitely not perfect, but overall he's just such a GOOD guy....

I guess it's a nice guy with a little bit of spice to his character. ;) That's what most of us want, really, isn't it? :)

Thanks for the giveaway by the way - AWESOME that it's international! Yayy! :)

I am SO looking forward to this book now! I've been waiting for what seems like ever for the ARCs to get out so I can start reading some reviews and see what this is all about. I love it. Great contest, btw. It seems like the ARCs just got dispersed and here you are giving one away already. Way to build the frenzy!